Soul Meets Body
by greatblueheart
Summary: A Grey's Anatomy Zombie Fic - Takes place after "Migration" Season 8 but before the finale. The doctors at SGH are separated when a mysterious virus sweeps the city. They must fight for their lives and find a way to get back to the people they love. Rated M for violence and language.
1. Chapter 1

_Read Me: Hi everyone! Thanks for checking out this story. I'm a long-time lurker here but this is the first story I've posted so I'm super stoked for feedback! Anyway this is sort of an AU story that takes place right AFTER "Migration" in season 8 but BEFORE [Spoilers!] the plane crash in the finale. Everything else is the same as the series canon. Anyway this is a zombie fic (which is not everyone's cup of tea) BUT I want to keep it as loyal to the flow of the show as possible so I think anybody could like it. Hope you ENJOY!_

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**May 23 5:34am - Seattle-Tacoma International Airport**

Meredith Grey pushed her suitcase onto the cart next to Mark's blue and white duffle bag and zipped up a loose outside pouch. "Did you remember to leave Zola's Tylenol with the hospital daycare?" she asked Derek as an airport attendant wheeled away the cart containing the doctors' luggage. "She has still been fussing with her ear infection and I want to make sure they have it if she needs it."

"I didn't forget," Derek said with a grin as he took Meredith's hand. "And she will be fine. We are only going to Boise for the day. We will be back in time for dinner."

It was the first time they had left their adoptive daughter for more than a few hours without either of her parents and Meredith was more than a little nervous. It didn't help that Zola had woken up just a few days before their trip with an ear infection that had kept her in tears for days. Alex Karev had assured them that she would be fine with just some antibiotics but Meredith couldn't help but want to stay home.

"I just want to make sure she has everything she needs…" she said, awkward that he had caught her once again in her somewhat irrational motherly concern.

Derek laughed and kissed his wife on the cheek, walking hand-in-hand toward the security check.

"Are you sure you want to go?" Callie said as she walked with Arizona toward the rows of metal detectors. "I'm just saying that I think Alex feels bad enough."

She stopped and pulled on Arizona's wrist until the blonde was facing her. "Besides," she said with an exaggerated pout, "I hope you realize that you're not just punishing him by leaving but you're punishing me too."

She maintained her comical expression until Arizona's look of tension broke into a reluctant laugh and she sighed and relaxed slightly. "I know. It's too late now anyway," the blonde surgeon said glancing toward the rest of the doctors as they placed their few remaining belongings into plastic bins at the x-ray machines. "I have to go. But I will be back tonight," she promised.

Callie handed her the carry-on bag and nodded toward the rest of the group. "You'd better catch up then," she said. Placing her hand on the small of her wife's back and pulling her in for a sudden kiss. "And hurry back," she winked, "or I might not wait up."

Lexie Grey flushed bright pink as the metal detector went off for a second time as she walked through. She backed through again and dumped a handful of change out of her back pocket into the security guard's dish.

"Metal detectors seriously hate me," she joked to him but he only responded with a stoic grunt.

She stepped through for a third time and groaned as it let out another high-pitch screech. Looking up, she noticed Mark staring at her from the other side of the checkpoint. They both quickly broke eye contact and Lexie turned back to the guard.

"Look, I already took off my belt and I don't have anything else in my pockets," she exclaimed in frustration. "I don't have any metal joints and I'm not carrying any weapons. I don't know what this thing wants from me!"

He raised an eyebrow and pointed lazily to her head. "Hairclip," he muttered.

Lexie rolled her eyes and yanked out the clip. It would be just her luck that the tiniest piece of metal on her body would be the problem. She threw the item into the bin and stomped through the grey arch without a hitch.

"Earth to Sloan," Cristina Yang grumbled as she shoved passed the taller doctor to grab her shoes off the conveyor belt, "it's a security line not happy hour. Move it!"

Mark glared at Cristina as she laced up her tennis shoes and shrugged her jacket back on. "Are you and Grey having some sort of lover's spat, Yang?" he huffed, only half-teasing. "You seem even more vicious than usual. Which I didn't think was even possible."

Cristina leveled the plastic surgeon with a steely gaze before picking up her backpack and stalking toward the gate.

Once they had all checked in, the doctors crossed the tarmac and climbed the steps into their aircraft. They listened half-heartedly as one of the pilots explained the safety features of the small 12-seat plane and then prepared for take-off. Meredith turned to try to make eye contact with Cristina for the hundredth time that morning but her friend simply sat across the aisle with her eyes trained on the window.

The engines spun up and the plane taxied onto the runway. A heavy silence fell over the cabin as the plane took off into the rising sun.

**May 23 5:56am - Seattle Grace Hospital – Emergency Room**

"It's slow slow slow slow slow," April whined from her seat at the Emergency Room intake desk. She allowed her head to fall from its perch on her fist and smacked her forehead on the desk lightly. The ER was nearly vacant.

"Are you some kind of idiot?" Alex growled, coming up behind her and shoving her rolling chair away from the desk. "This is Seattle Grace Mercy _Death. _Unless you want some kind of freaking tragedy to come rolling through those doors, you'd better shut your mouth."

He rooted around in the desk drawer for a moment before pulling out a large chocolate bar from the back of the drawer. "Ha! Nurses can't get anything by me," he laughed. Looking over at April he jabbed the candy in her direction. "And why don't you keep it shut about this too," he said before wandering out of the ER.

April stuck out her legs and scooted back toward the desk with a huff. She leaned back in the chair and tried to mentally calculate exactly how many hours of being a doctor she had left at Seattle Grace before her firing took effect. A woman's voice interrupted her thoughts and April leaned forward again and fixed a lazy gaze on the speaker.

"We have been waiting here for over an hour," a grey-haired woman was saying in a tone of barely restrained frustration. "My husband is clearly sick and I want a doctor to see him!"

April sighed and glanced over the woman's shoulder toward the bed where her husband was perched over a large plastic bin. He gagged intermittently into the bin and was looking very green. "Mrs. MacAllister," she said turning back to the woman who had been badgering the staff all morning, "As the nurse told you, he probably just has a stomach virus or food poisoning. We are still waiting for the results on that blood test but I really think you might just want to take him home for some rest."

"No!" the woman's voice rose an octave. "I know my husband and I know when something is wrong. I want to speak to a doctor immediately!"

"I_ am_ a doctor," April insisted angrily and the woman turned away in a huff. "For now…"

The desk phone lit up and April snatched it up before it could even finish its first ring. "Emergency Room," she said without a hint of her usual friendliness.

Owen Hunt was hunched behind a stack of paperwork in the conference room when April found him. With six surgeons in Idaho, Owen had been saddled with much of their discharge documents and charts that had been left to the last minute. He was far from a generous mood.

"Chief?" April said as she opened the door to the conference room with a knock. "Seattle Presbyterian just called the ER. We've been quiet all day but apparently they are swamped with cases. They want to start sending their overflow to us…"

"Overflow?" Owen muttered as he looked up from his work. "What happened?"

In all of his time working at Seattle Grace-Mercy West Hospital, Hunt had never heard of Seattle Pres asking for help relieving a high volume of patients. The smaller hospital was situated further outside of the city, and they rarely dealt with serious disasters like ferry crashes, sink holes and major car accidents that seemed to be frequent at SGMW.

"Um, that's just it, sir," April said. "Nothing's happened…"

Owen sighed and ran his hand through his hair in frustration. "What do you mean 'nothing', Kepner," he grumbled as he pushed away from the table and pulled his jacket off the back of his seat. "Why would Seattle Pres need our help dealing with nothing? You _did_ tell them that we are missing a large part of our surgical team today, right?"

He started off down the hallway with April trailing behind. "I told them, sir. They just said they have a really high volume of sick people right now and need to send some here," she responded. "That was all they said."

"Well sick people are our specialty," Owen said. "Let them know that our ER is open to receive any overflow patients."

"Okay, I will," April said glancing down at a chart in her hand, "Well the first one is on his way and the EMTs said his heart's already stopped in the van."

Owen stopped abruptly and spun to face the smaller doctor who was rushing behind him. "They're sending a critical patient? I thought you said it was just 'sick' people," he said, perhaps more loudly than he had intended because April bustled backwards awkwardly. "For god's sake Kepner you probably should have led with that one."

Owen pulled a new gown out of the box and pulled it over his shirt and tie. Truthfully, he was relishing the idea of a serious incoming trauma far more than shuffling through more paperwork. As he pushed through the doors into the ER, however, he reconsidered.

The previously silent room had spun up to a chaotic storm of screaming and yelling. "I thought you said it was quiet in here today, Kepner!" Owen shouted above the din to the shocked resident.

Alex Karev was bent over the bed of a thin, grey-haired man and was trying to perform CPR while the patient's wife wailed in the background. "Where the hell have you been, Kepner!" Alex growled between compressions.

"What happened?" April shouted above Mrs. MacAllister's screams, "He has the flu!"

"Well he just had a seizure and now his heart has stopped so apparently not, genius!" Alex said. He stepped away from the patient and pulled the crash cart to the side of the bed. "Push 6mg of adenosine and charge to 200," Alex ordered a nurse as the familiar whine of the charging defibrillator paddles filled the air.

April began to protest but Owen cut her off. "Kepner deal with the wife," he said, moving toward the ambulance bay doors. "I'm going to meet the patient coming in from Seattle Pres."

"I need more doctors," Owen said to the nurse as he passed the ER desk. "Page Dr. Bailey please."

April tugged the distraught wife toward the waiting area and attempted to calm her frantic yelling. "I told you!" she screamed belligerently, tears streaming down her face. "I knew there was something wrong with him and you didn't listen!"

"Yes, Mrs. MacAllister," April muttered in a tone she hoped would calm the woman. "Dr. Karev is doing everything he can to figure out what's wrong with your husband. And I-"

April's statement was cut short as the woman lunged forward and snaked her fingers around the brunette doctor's neck. They tumbled onto the waiting room floor and April skidded backwards on the tail of her lab jacket. Mrs. MacAllister clawed after her, howling wildly.

"Security!" April yelped. "Somebody call security!" The woman leapt forward and pinned April to the carpet again before clawing at her in a frenzy. April covered her head defensively and tried to avoid the flurry of long manicured nails.

April gasped as she felt the woman's weight lifted from her chest by two security guards. She crawled backwards away from the woman and clambered to her feet, checking herself for any serious injuries to anything other than her sanity.

Mrs. MacAllister was still screaming and struggling against the security guards despite their orders to calm down. "Jesus! Can you get her a sedative or something?" one of the officers asked the still-shocked April.

She nodded and began to back away from the group but froze again as Mrs. MacAllister's body went rigid. Her eyes rolled back and her hands balled up into tight fists.

"Oh my god, put her down," April said, rushing forward again. "How is she—I think she's having a seizure. Put her down!"

The security guards gingerly lowered her to the floor as the woman's body began to shake. "What the hell is going on?" April muttered before turning shouting into the ER behind her for a gurney.

Owen started toward the ambulance as it pulled into the ER bay. The rig doors popped open to reveal two EMTs and a patient strapped to a gurney. "Patient is Roger Swanson, 39, presenting with severe nausea and head pain," the paramedic began her explanation as she exited the back of the van.

"He bit me Sara!" the other paramedic muttered as he jumped out behind her. "I can't believe he fuckin' bit me!" Owen glanced down at his arm and noticed the distinctive marks of a bite wound that had torn right through the paramedic's sleeve and was slowly coloring the fabric with blood.

The EMT continued: "He flat-lined in the rig on the way here but we were able to resuscitate after less than 3 minutes. Once we got him back he became extremely aggressive and tried to take a bite out of my partner. That's why we restrained him."

Owen nodded as he helped push the gurney toward the ER. The patient bucked and strained against his restraints and had taken up a cycle of yelling and swearing at the medical personnel around him.

"Oh, good," Alex muttered as Owen wheeled the gurney up next to where he was seated beside his patient's bed. "Another screamer. I was beginning to miss the racket."

"How's _your _patient, Karev?" Owen demanded without looking up.

"We got him back but his pressure is running like a roller coaster. Up and down and up and down. What did this guy eat?"

Without warning both patient's monitors beeped an alarm. "He's tachycardic. 6 of Adenosine, please," Owen ordered.

"Crap mine is too!" Alex jumped up from beside the old man's bed and reached for the paddles again as the bed was surrounded again with staff.

**May 23 6:22am – Yale Avenue, Downtown Seattle**

"The rioting throughout east coast cities intensified yesterday when four police officers were killed in a Manhattan protest that turned violent. New York chief of police has called for intervention by the National Guard and is urging residents to-,"

Callie snapped the volume dial on her car stereo to silent as she pulled off of the freeway toward the hospital. She groaned and rolled her shoulders against the seatback trying to get out some exhausted tension. She had decided to drop Arizona off at the airport as a spur-of-the-moment decision to try and calm the still-fuming doctor before her flight, but she would have honestly preferred to have had a bit more rest before her shift.

Reaching across the seat for her coffee, Callie let out a huge yawn.

"Shit!" she swore and dropped her coffee as her front bumper crunched into the back of the beat up van in front of her. "Shit, shit, shit. Really, Callie?" she muttered to herself as she yanked her car into reverse and pulled back from the dented green metal of the van she had just rear-ended.

Rolling down her window, the dark-haired doctor leaned out and tried to signal to the driver ahead of her to pull over but to her surprise, the door of the van was already standing open. Her medical concern beginning to outweigh her embarrassment over the small car accident, Callie shifted her car into park and got out. She waved the honking drivers behind her to go around before rounding the van and peering into the open driver's side door.

"Hello?" Callie glanced into the backseat of the car before moving back around to the sidewalk. A blue sedan was parked in front of the van with its driver's door standing ajar as well. Suddenly an animalistic scream spun Callie around to face the alleyway behind her.

The two missing drivers, locked in a violent struggle, were drawing a small crowd of onlookers. "You hippie motherfucker!" howled a short man in a dark grey suit as he bashed the other savagely with his fists. "Who the fuck do you think you are?"

The other man was whipped into a matching rage and had one of his hands around the other's throat and was hurling his own string of expletives. His green and black T-shirt tore as he managed to shove the businessman off of him with a sudden kick. Reaching for a nearby hunk of brick he hurled it wildly toward the man in the suit with a guttural shout.

The brick spun awkwardly across the alley but met its mark with a resounding crack against the forehead of the man in the suit. He tipped backwards against the opposite building before sliding to a heap on the sidewalk.

Callie snapped out of her shock and realized that she had been watching the fight completely transfixed. She darted forward through the crowd. "Someone call the police," she ordered one of the stunned onlookers, "and get an ambulance!" The businessman's eyes fluttered open and closed as he drifted toward unconsciousness.

"Sir?" Callie tried to make eye contact with the man as his light blue eyes began to glaze over. A long gash from nearly the center of his head to his temple had covered nearly half of his face in blood already and was quickly changing the color of his white dress collar. Callie pulled out her keys and shone a beam of light from the attached flashlight into his eyes. "Sir, I'm a doctor. Can you focus on me?"

She heard harsh retching from behind her and she turned to look in time to see the other man double over and lose the contents of his stomach into a nearby trash bin before collapsing to the ground.

**May 23 7:02am - Seattle Grace Hospital – Emergency Room**

"Help me get her on the gurney!" April pushed the gurney toward where Mrs. MacAllister was still lying prone on the waiting room floor. "I need to get her back into the ER. And someone get me a chart on her!"

They lifted the now-silent women onto the bed and wheeled her back toward the brightly lit floor. April felt for a pulse but couldn't find anything. She and the security guards pushed the gurney up alongside the other patients in the ER as they were joined by more nurses.

"Clear!" Owen shouted as the body of the man from the ambulance went rigid beneath the defibrillator paddles.

"That's it," April heard Alex mutter from two beds away, "I'm calling it. He's not gonna come back."

He glanced at the clock. "Time of death, 7:03 a.m," he said and turned to a nurse, "Can you find his wife and -?"

"The wife is right here!" April interrupted. Owen and Alex both looked up in surprise and recognized the immobile form of Mrs. MacAllister.

"What, did you knock her out to shut her up?" Alex demanded, rounding the bed and glaring at the monitors above the woman's bed. "Did you even hook her up yet?"

April looked up at the flat-lining heart monitor line and nodded. "I just did! S-She had a seizure or something in the waiting room… and now she doesn't have a pulse."

April dragged the crash cart over and began to charge the paddles.

"Wait!" a nurse ran up with a chart in her hand. "She has a Do Not Resuscitate Order in her chart."

"What the hell?" Alex muttered and snatched the chart out of the nurse's hands. "Why would she have a DNR?"

April paused with the paddles in her hands, the high-pitched whine of a waiting charge adding to the silent tension of the room.

"She has late stage breast cancer…" Alex muttered. "She signed a DNR yesterday."

"No way…" April said, still leaning over the woman with the defibrillator.

"Kepner, step away from the patient," Owen called over from the other bed. "Step away from her, and call it."

"Time of death, 7:08 a.m," April said robotically. She discharged the paddles and looked up at the ceiling.

"Time of death, 7:08a.m," Owen seconded, pulling a sheet over the face of the man from the ambulance. He pulled off his gloves with a snap and threw them into a medical tray. "Call the morgue, Karev. We have more patients coming in."

"What happened to them, Chief?" April asked in frustration. "I - they just died for no reason! Chief?"

Owen crossed the room without a word and shut himself in one of the private rooms off of the ER. Running his hand through his hair, he pulled out his phone and pressed the speed dial for Cristina's name. The phone rang once before he could hang up.

A knock at the door jerked his attention away as his office assistant slipped into the room behind him. "Chief?" she asked as she glanced around the darkened room, "There's a call for you."

"I have a shortage of doctors right now and an ER that is about to fill up," Owen replied shortly. He pulled off his gown and yanked out another from a nearby box. "Tell them you'll take a message."

"Yes, sir," she replied awkwardly. She picked up the wall phone from its cradle and tapped in a series of numbers before handing the receiver to him. "I tried, but it's the Center for Disease Control, sir. And they say it's urgent."

"I mean it Alex," April whispered as she rinsed out the bite marks on the EMT's arm. "They just died! It doesn't make any sense."

"It makes perfect sense to anyone with half a brain, Kepner," he responded snarkily. "The old lady had a terminal disease. And the guy in the ambulance was practically already dead before he got here."

"What about her husband?" April countered hotly. "Since when does the flu cause heart failure?"

The EMT hissed in pain as April continued to irrigate the wound. "Sorry," April winced, turning her attention back her work.

"Step away from the patient immediately, Kepner!" Owen burst from the side room and back into the main emergency wing. The EMT leaned forward and tried to get up as April stepped back toward Alex.

"Stay where you are," Owen ordered and turned to Alex, "Call upstairs and get a quarantine kit down here."

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_Hope you enjoyed Chapter 1! The next chapter will be up soon.  
_


	2. Chapter 2

_Hi again, sorry for the long wait between these chapters! I promise the next one will be a quicker upload. Hope you enjoy! :D_

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**May 23 7:22am - Somewhere over Oregon**

Arizona tipped her head against the window next to her seat and watched the sea of treetops as it rushed below them. She always found herself feeling existential on airplanes and today's was no exception. The cool glass against her forehead didn't seem to do much for her racing thoughts.

"Everything alright?" Mark's voice came from over her shoulder and she sat up in her seat to face him. He grinned. "Just wanted to check in."

"Just thinking about the surgery today," she lied. He nodded, though he clearly didn't believe the response.

"Well, you know I'm here to chat if you want," he offered, "about the surgery and, you know, anything else…"

Before she could respond, the door to the cockpit slid open. A young man clambered back toward the rows of seats, ducking his head slightly to avoid the low ceiling of the cabin. "I'm First Officer Raleigh," he said, clearly trying to mask the trembling in his voice with an air of authority. "Is there a doctor here?"

"We're all surgeons," Arizona offered shifting out of the window seat and closer to the aisle.

"It's the pilot," the officer continued. "He's feeling really ill and says he has a headache. I think he needs someone to look at him."

Derek nudged Meredith to stand up so he could scoot out of his seat. "I'm a neurosurgeon," he offered his hand to shake, "Dr. Shepherd. I wouldn't mind having a look."

Raleigh made room for Derek to pass him in the aisle and gestured toward the cockpit.

"What exactly is a First Officer?" Cristina leaned forward in her seat.

"I'm the co-pilot," Raleigh muttered.

"You should probably be flying the plane then," she responded. He nodded uncomfortably and moved back toward the front of the plane.

Leaning over the captain's chair in the cockpit, Derek shone his pocket light into the each of the pilot's eyes. "Would you mind coming back to the cabin with me, Captain—"

"Kelso," the captain filled in, "Ron Kelso."

He clambered up out of his seat and followed Derek into the cabin. "Just leave it in auto, Jerry," he nodded to the young co-pilot, "I'll be back in a bit."

He pulled out a plastic water bottle from a cabinet and lowered himself into the first seat in the cabin with a groan. "It just came on so suddenly, Doc," he growled through gritted teeth. "It feels like someone's squeezing my head or something. At first I was worried the cabin was depressurizing or something but everything looks fine."

"Not a problem, Captain," Derek responded, as he resumed his examination. "Have you had a fall lately? Hit your head?"

"Nope not at all. I was feeling a bit under the weather this morning. Sort of felt like a hangover actually," he laughed weakly to himself. "The wife wanted me to call in sick but I thought it had pretty much cleared up."

"On a scale of one to ten," Derek offered, "ten being the highest, how would you classify your pain."

"Ah… maybe an eight?" Kelso muttered, taking a sip from the water bottle. "I've had some migraines in the past but this is pretty unbelievable."

Suddenly the captain jerked forward in his seat with a pained groan. "It's a ten now," he said, gripping the sides of his head with his hands.

"Alright, I'm going to see what I have in my bag and I'll be back," Derek offered. He stood carefully and moved toward the back of the plane.

"What's going on?" Mark whispered once Derek had reached the other five doctors again, "Migraine?"

"I'm afraid not," Derek responded quietly. He rifled through his backpack. "His left pupil is blown. I can't be sure without more tests but from one I can tell he has a seriously elevated intracranial pressure."

"Why would his brain be swelling?" Meredith glanced toward where the pilot was doubled over in his seat.

"It could be any one of a number of things. Cancer, stroke, some sort of injury he doesn't remember. I can't be sure until we get him to a hospital."

"We're only halfway through an hour and a half flight," Lexie said, double checking her watch. "Will he make it that long?"

A splash from the front of the plan halted Derek's response as the water bottle rolled backwards under the seats. The captain had gone rigid in his chair.

"He's seizing," Derek said, rushing back in time to catch the older man has he slid from his seat and onto the aisle floor. Meredith followed, and yanked open a cabinet near the front of the plane in search of a first aid kit. After a moment she hauled out a blue and white emergency bag and threw it down onto the carpet next to the captain. The remaining four doctors clambered to their feet and hovered in the crowded aisleway.

"Captain Kelso?" the co-pilot shouted from the open cockpit door. "What's going on?"

"Do you think there is even anything in here that might help" Meredith questioned, rummaging through the rolls of gauze and bandages in the emergency kit. Kelso bucked and jerked against the dark blue and grey patterned carpet.

"There's probably a syringe with some emergency dexamethasone. They use it for altitude sickness," Derek said shortly, holding the captain's jerking head tightly to avoid blocking his breathing. "We need to get him to a hospital immediately."

"The stress of the seizure might stop his heart," Cristina interjected, squeezing past Meredith to pull a miniature defibrillator out of the first aid cabinet.

"What- what's happening?" the co-pilot shouted again, "Is he dying?"

Arizona stepped lightly over the doctors' workspace and moved into the cockpit. The high, wide windows provided a near panoramic view of the open sky. The nose of the plane pushed through the clouds like the bow of a boat through the waves and the unaffected blue of the sky stretched out above them in unwavering color.

The blonde doctor slid down into the other seat as a wave of slight vertigo rose over her. Steadying her stomach, she turned toward the young pilot. "The captain isn't doing very well," she said in as calm a voice as she could muster. "We have to land this plane and get him to the hospital as soon as we can."

"Land the plane?" he yelped. "I can't land the plane!"

"What do you mean you can't?" Arizona could hear the slight quaver of a panic leaking into her tone but she forced it down. "You're the co-pilot."

"I'm a _trainee_ co-pilot!" he whimpered. "I'm not supposed to start landings for a month!"

Arizona's eyes darted back into the cabin where she knew the other doctors, standing only a few feet away, had heard the young officer's confession.

"Well we're going to need you to start a little early," she responded, turning her attention back to the trembling boy. She placed a hand on his shoulder. "Where is the closest airport?"

Raleigh took a breath and tapped the screen on his flight computer. "We're approaching an airfield now," he muttered. "It's small. Only 6 runways… but they have a hospital about fifteen minutes away."

"Sounds like exactly what we need," Arizona responded encouragingly.

The pilot hesitated for a moment as if trying to remember his next steps. He reached forward and picked up the radio receiver. "Ground control, this is commercial flight number 3847 requesting emergency landing at Baker City Municipal Airport. Medical emergency aboard."

The radio crackled only silent air in response. Raleigh furrowed his eyebrows and pressed down on the call button again. "Repeat. This is commercial flight 3847 requesting emergency landing. Please respond."

He looked to Arizona. "I can't land without permission from flight control," he said, the panic rising behind his voice again.

Arizona reached over and took the receiver out of the pilot's hand and caught his eyes with hers. "The captain is not going to make it if you don't land this plane. He will die up here," she gestured to the receiver in her hand. "I will keep calling flight control the same way you just did, but you need to just land."

The pilot let out a breath and turned back toward the dashboard. He reached over and flipped a switch on the dash prompting an automated announcement that the autopilot system had been disengaged. He pulled a microphone up to his mouth and spoke over the PA system, "I'm starting the decent. I need everyone to get back in their seats and put their seatbelts on." He leaned back and pulled the door to the cockpit closed.

Arizona settled back into her seat and snapped herself in. "Ground control, this is flight 3847 attempting an emergency landing," she repeated into the radio receiver as the plane began to descend. "Please respond."

"Anything?" Meredith asked as she withdrew the syringe from the captain's forearm. His breathing was labored but he remained unconsciously sprawled across the aisle.

Derek held open one of the pilot's eyelids and shone his light in and out. "Nothing yet," he responded and sat back on his heels.

Cristina had pulled the portable defibrillator out of its plastic case and was waiting, cross-legged on the carpet next to the prone older man. She watched Meredith intently as the doctor timed the captain's pulse against the seconds on her wristwatch. As they waited in silence, timing their patient's breathing and heartbeats, Cristina felt her mind begin to spin up the now-familiar carousel of emotions that had reduced her to a silent, distant wreck for the last week:

Starting with Owen's confession of infidelity, then their fights about the pregnancy, and that burning and unexpected shame she had been feeling since his outburst about it in front of all of their friends, Cristina watched her cycle of memories like a broken record. She also couldn't erase the expression of hurt that had crossed Meredith's face when they last spoke.

"I can't find a pulse," Meredith's voice interrupted Cristina's thoughts. She switched her hold on the pilot's wrist and pressed her ear to his chest. "No breath sounds."

"Starting compressions," Cristina said, rising to her knees. She struck a hard blow to the center of the captain's chest before starting to count out the rhythm of CPR.

Lexie pulled an Ambu bag out of the first aid kit and handed it up the aisle to her sister before shoving the bag back under the seat for the landing. She clambered back toward her seat and slid into the spot next to the window. She clicked her belt into place and trained her eyes on the wing of the plane as it sliced downward through a layer of clouds. After a moment the seat next to her shifted and Mark's hand slid into her own.

"Get into your seat, Meredith," Derek said, trying to take the manual oxygen pump from her.

"I'm fine here," she responded and locked eyes with Cristina.

"…Please respond," Arizona finished another recitation into the receiver before finally locking it back into its clip. The treetops below them were rising rapidly and Arizona could see the long lines of a runway approaching from below the horizon.

"…throttle…gear…flare…flaps…" Arizona heard Raleigh whispering a list of steps over and over to himself as the robotic female voice counted down the feet from the ground.

"500"

Meredith cut open the neckline of the pilot's undershirt and tore the rest of the material open before returning her hands to the oxygen mask.

"Charging," Derek said, typing in the command on the portable defibrillator.

Cristina raised the paddles over the man's chest and took a breath before ordering the other doctors to step back. "Clear."

"400"

Raliegh's knuckles were white against the throttle as he pulled backwards and the plane slowed in the air. The roar of the engines had drowned out any other sounds coming from the cabin and the concrete rectangle of the runway had expanded to fill the view of the windshield. Arizona's hand was at her neck, her fingers wrapped around cool shape of the silver heart on her necklace.

"300…200"

Derek reached to feel for a pulse again and quickly shook his head. He reached for the recharge button on the paddles.

"100…50"

The co-pilot's grip on the throttle changed as the nose of the plane pulled up and the rear dropped down. The sounds of the engines faded down as the plane drifted over the runway like a kite, hovering just above the ground.

"30…20…15…10…5"

Arizona sucked in an involuntary gasp and squeezed her eyes shut as the back wheels touched down with a rubbery screech.

"Shit," Raleigh swore as the aircraft bounced back up off the runway and tilted heavily to the right. He wrestled bodily against the steering yoke. Finally, he corrected the angle of the wings and the wheels touched down for the last time.

The plane slowed and taxied to the edge of the runway until it stopped completely at the edge of a brown strip of grass only a few yards from the airport building. Raleigh cut the engine and slowly loosened his death grip on the plane's controls. He turned and locked eyes with Arizona before both released a breath they had been holding for what seemed like an age.

"Not bad for a first time," Raleigh said, his voice shaking with adrenaline. He reached across the center console of the cockpit and offered his hand for a handshake.

Arizona laughed and grabbed his hand, pulling him in for a sudden relief-filled hug. They both burst into fits of shaky laughter and leaned back in their seats

A pounding at the door behind them brought them out of their relief with a jolt.

"We need an ambulance back here," Mark's muffled voice came through the door, he turned and yanked up on the door handle on the hatch of the plane. It swung open with a hiss of air and the cabin was filled with scorching sunlight.

Mark leaned out of the open doorway and squinted against the early morning sun overhead. He sized up the distance from the door to the ground before jumping the few feet onto the pavement of the airfield.

"Hello?" he shouted, and his voice echoed back to him from a large forested area at the far edge of the runways. The airfield was completely silent and still. A nearly-full baggage tram was parked crookedly near the edge of the nearby building and a few of the suitcases had been scattered across the ground. The light atop the radio control tower at the far edge of the airstrip was spinning slowly, sending a faded beam of light across the area.

Mark made his way carefully over the fallen luggage to a door at the bottom of the two-story airport building. The lock was firmly set but a small window above the handle showed a long white hallway and a series of flickering fluorescent lights beyond.

A soft thud came from the plane behind him and he turned to see Lexie clambering to her feet outside the hatch.

"The pilot says he can't still can't get anyone on the radio," she said, raising her hand above her eyes to block out the sun.

"I'm not surprised," Mark muttered, crossing the tarmac again to meet her in front of the hatch. "The place looks deserted…"

"Is your phone working?" Lexie asked. She waved her cell phone at him. "No one can get a signal."

He shook his head awkwardly as he pulled his out of his jacket pocket. "Forgot to charge it," he muttered.

"Derek says the guy doesn't look good," she responded quickly, "He says we have to get him to a hospital soon or—"

"I wouldn't worry about it," Cristina interrupted from inside the plane. She leaned back on her heels and sighed with exhaustion. "He's not coming back."

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_That's it for now but the next chapter should be up tomorrow most likely. Let me know what you think and check back soon!_


	3. Chapter 3

_Oh my goodness, quickest update ever! Don't get too used to it though; I just had lots of time to write this weekend. Also, thank you for the lovely reviews so far! :D Enjoy!_

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_**May 23 8:36am - Seattle Grace Hospital - Emergency Room**_

"Two more patients coming in," Miranda Bailey called from the doorway of the ambulance bay. "A fender bender and some serious road rage ended in a sidewalk brawl apparently…"

She pulled a second glove over her free hand as she took her place next to the Chief of Surgery to wait for the oncoming ambulances.

"…Sounds like all kind of madness is running around downtown today, sir. And on my day off too…" She shot a disapproving glance toward the Chief.

"Seems like it…" Owen responded with a stoic nod. For the past hour they had been admitting patients from all across the city with symptoms that matched the description that he had received over the phone from the Center for Disease Control.

The CDC had warned about a disease presenting as the flu and included symptoms of nausea, vomiting, head pain and seizures, not to mention serious heightened aggression. They advised Hunt to quarantine any incoming patients and wait until a representative from the CDC arrived with her team by helicopter.

Owen and Bailey started forward as another ambulance pulled up to the bay doors. As the back doors swung open they instantly recognized Callie Torres bent over the patient in the back.

She hopped out of the back of the rig as the doctors pulled the gurney out and kept her hands pressed firmly against a sodden patch of gauze at the patient's forehead. The front of her shirt was spattered with blood and her sleeves were soaked up to the elbow.

"I have a serious skull fracture here," she announced as Hunt and Bailey approached. "He was hit with a brick in a fight with another driver. There's another ambulance coming with the other guy."

Owen reached up and took over Callie's hold on the gauze. "Is this all his blood?" he asked Callie as they pushed the gurney into the ER.

She nodded. "Some of it may be from the other driver but I think most of it is from this guy's head wound. He had a major seizure in the ambulance on the way. I'm going to call upstairs for a neuro consult and grab some new scrubs. Meet you in there?"

She turned away but Owen grabbed her by the upper arm, careful to avoid contact with the blood. "A seizure?"

"Yeah, I figured it was from the head injury," she responded.

"What about nausea?" Owen passed the patient off to another group of staff and focused his attention on Callie.

"Not this one. He was unconscious pretty quickly," Callie said, shifting uncomfortably in her soiled blouse. "The other guy, though. He obviously had some seriously bad breakfast."

Owen glanced toward the doorway where the second patient had arrived and was being wheeled through. The man was straining against the paramedics and hurling obscenities at everyone around him as his gurney rolled past.

"There's been an outbreak of some kind of infection," Owen said, turning back to Callie. "I'm going to need to quarantine you."

"What? You're kidding me!" Callie nearly shouted at him. "Hunt, I followed proper protocol… none of this is my blood."

"But you're covered in it, Torres," he responded, raising his voice to match her tone. "The CDC is saying that it's a highly-contagious, fluid-transferrable infection and I have no idea how much contact it takes to transmit."

"Come on," she countered. "What's the likelihood that one of these guys had the same disease the CDC called about—"

He grabbed a clean pair of navy blue scrubs from a nearby shelf and pushed them into the other surgeon's hands. "The quarantine is set up on the second floor right now. Go up there and tell the head nurse that—,"

"For god's sake, Hunt," Callie interrupted, "I'm fine! I don't need to sit around in some closet somewhere and—"

"That's enough, Dr. Torres," Owen cut abruptly; he motioned to a security guard near the door. "This isn't a suggestion! You _will _go up to the second floor immediately and stay there until you are cleared."

Callie glared back the Chief for a moment as if sizing up her chances against him before turning on her heel and following the security guard down the hallway.

As her back receded away from him, Owen let out a sigh of exasperation. He knew better than anyone that he didn't have enough doctors at his disposal to be sending good ones away to watch the hours tick by upstairs. He glanced down at his watch before hurrying toward the elevator. Punching the button for the roof access to the helicopter pad, he leaned against the back wall and closed his eyes for the short ride to the top.

_**May 23 8:40 - Seattle Grace Hospital – Second Floor**_

Callie tugged off her stained shirt and tossed it into a red and black biohazard bag with a sigh. "Leave it to me to get secret infection blood all over a new shirt…" she muttered.

"You know, you don't have to wait for me," she called through the door of the bathroom stall to the security guard who was lingering awkwardly outside.

"It's no problem, doctor," he responded mechanically.

She rolled her eyes and pulled the scrubs over her head before shoving the stall door open again. "Well let's get this over with," she grumbled, shoving her hands into the pockets of the scrubs and stepping back into the hallway. The officer followed warily a few paces back.

"You know, I told the Chief that this floor isn't really set up for a quarantine ward," a nurse informed her conversationally when they reached the second floor. Callie signed herself in and dropped the remainder of her belongings into a bin at the desk. "Luckily, there's only been one patient sent up here all day."

"Hunt said he was quarantining everyone who came in contact a sick person," Callie said as she followed the woman into an empty patient room. "Why is there only one person?"

"Well," the nurse responded awkwardly, pulling out her keys, "from what I heard, everyone else died…"

Callie felt her blood run cold and she opened her mouth to respond, but the nurse had already pulled the door closed. The lock snapped into place and the nurse's footsteps faded away down the hallway as the dark-haired surgeon sank down into an empty visitor's chair.

Callie could feel her heartbeat in her ears as an eerie silence filled the room. Not a single noise permeated the entire floor and she couldn't recall any other time that she had spent in the hospital which had been this quiet.

Day or night, there was an endless cycle of activity filling the halls of Seattle Grace. The air was always filled with a quiet murmur of voices, the high whine of electrical equipment and the almost rhythmic footsteps of the doctors and nurses performing their rounds. In fact, Callie had firsthand knowledge that any moment of quiet was nearly impossible to find, especially for impromptu rendezvous with a certain blonde peds surgeon.

The thought of Arizona pulled Callie out of her musings. Her wife's plane should have landed in Boise by now. Callie reached into a pocket in search of her cell phone before leaping to her feet and darting to the glass window at the front of the room.

"Hello?" she called tapping loudly on the glass. "I need to make a phone call. Hello?"

"Yeah. She can't hear you," a muffled voice came through the glass. From a matching patient's room across the hall a man was waving a bandaged arm at Callie through his own window.

"I think she might be ignoring us actually," he offered with a grin. "I'm, Ben. EMT."

"Hey," Callie answered, "Callie Torres. I'm an orthopedic surgeon here. Did they tell you how long this quarantine thing is supposed to last?"

"Afraid not. I think they're a bit unorganized actually," he answered, leaning against the glass and winked at her. "I've got places to be, you know!" he shouted overdramatically in the vague direction of the nurse's station.

Callie laughed lightly. "I really hope it doesn't take too long," she said, "I have to pick up my daughter later."

"Oh yeah?" Ben said conversationally. "I just got married last year. No kids yet. Not for lack of trying, though. The wife's gonna kill me when she sees this thing…"

He tapped his bandaged arm against the glass and chuckled. "She already thinks this job is going to kill me."

_**May 23 8:45am - Seattle Grace Hospital - Helicopter Pad**_

Owen raised his arm above his head and started forward onto the landing pad as the helicopter touched down. Before he could reach the aircraft, the door swung open and a group of six, heavily armed security personnel stepped out under the still spinning blades. After the final pair of boots hit the rooftop, a pair of grey, stiletto heels swung out and connected harshly with the concrete. Their owner reached out for Owen's hand and shook it sharply.

"Dr. Elizabeth Porter, CDC," she shouted over the whirring of the helicopter propeller. She was tall and clad in a smartly tailored suit jacket and matching pencil skirt. Her dark blonde hair was pulled back tightly in a bun and she was clutching a leather bag to her chest, a pair of thin-rimmed glassed perched precariously on her nose. "Dr. Hunt, I presume?"

Owen nodded and gestured toward the doorway into the elevator. The group filed in and Owen pushed the button for the lower floors.

"You certainly travel with a lot of muscle, Dr. Porter," Owen commented jokingly as the space in the elevator was quickly filled by the imposing security officers.

"After I meet with your staff to inform them of the situation, I would like to take a quick tour of your grounds and provisions, Dr. Hunt," she said ignoring his statement. "I will need to know exactly what this facility is capable of."

"I'm sorry," Owen cut in, "I was under the impression you were here to advise about this infectious disease…"

"That is _exactly_ why I'm here," she responded shortly, turning quickly to stare him down. She towered nearly a full head over him and didn't seem at all hesitant use her stature to intimidate him. "Did they not inform you on the phone?"

Owen furrowed his brow and shifted uncomfortably as he tried to recall if he had forgotten something from the hurried phone call.

"This facility has been commandeered by the Center for Disease Control as a staging area for infection control and containment in this city," she continued without waiting for a response. "Any unrelated medical patients and procedures will be transferred to other local hospitals."

"Commandeered?" Owen tried to interject but she continued to speak over him.

"Your staff, though not legally required to remain on site, will be advised to aid in the containment efforts." She pulled a think bundle of documents from her bag and passed it to Owen. "Any liability and legal information is documented in that packet, but I would really like to get started with—"

The doors to the elevator slid open but Owen stepped into the doorway blocking her exit.

"Now just wait a minute," he interrupted, his voice rising slightly. "What the hell is going on here? You can't just come into this hospital and take over. This is a privately owned hospital. We have other patients and my staff is short-handed as it is. I'm going to need a bit more of an explanation than some _unknown infection_ to just hand over the entire hospital."

Porter tipped her head to the side quizzically. "Dr. Hunt, I don't suppose you've been keeping up with the news today, have you?" she asked, narrowing her eyes slightly. Owen hesitated again but she answered for him. "I don't suppose you have. Because _if_ you had been, you would know that this disease isn't just 'some unknown infection'. _This_ disease has managed to cripple infrastructure in four cities on the east coast, southern California and the Midwest in a matter of hours. _This _disease is being documented as highly infectious, highly volatile and highly deadly. In fact, the only piece of information that you seem to be aware of is that as of this moment its origins remain entirely unknown."

She paused for a moment to let her words settle in the air around them. The security team shifted anxiously in the confines of the elevator.

Owen pulled a breath of air into his lungs and opened his mouth to respond but couldn't seem to find any words. Finally he just nodded shortly. If the armed guards this woman had brought with her were any indication, this was a military operation. Owen knew first-hand how decisions were made in the military: orders come in, and they were followed. And as much as he disliked it, Seattle Grace was currently under a military command.

"Now, I am completely willing to answer any questions you may have, but for right now, if you wouldn't mind, I would really like to get started with the tasks at hand," Porter said, her tone returning its previous calm, mechanical nature. "I trust you've assembled your available staff for my briefing?"

Owen paused before nodding again. He could feel himself moving back toward the mindset that he had lived during his time in Iraq but fought the urge to respond with a customary, "Yes, ma'am." When the elevator doors finally opened, he quickly stepped out of the doorway and led the way down the hall as the miniature army of guards followed closely behind them.

_**May 23 9:39am - Seattle Grace Hospital – Quarantine Ward**_

Callie paced back and forth in front of the window to her room. The enclosed space felt smaller and stuffier with every minute that ticked by on the clock above the door. Nearly an hour had passed since she had been sent to this silent floor and she was starting to get more than a little bit antsy.

The EMT who was locked in the room across the hall had stretched out on his own bed some time ago and was now somehow snoring loud enough to be heard from two walls away.

Callie flopped down in the visitor's chair for possibly the hundredth time and closed her eyes, willing herself to sleep, but the anxious energy that was coursing through her body wouldn't allow her the courtesy.

A knock at the window jarred her back to the stuffy room around her. Miranda Bailey stood in the hallway and waved. She had Meredith and Derek's daughter Zola perched on her hip.

"The Chief said you were up here," Bailey called through the glass. "Thought I'd come by and check on you."

Callie rushed to the window, ecstatic to have someone to talk to again.

"Thank god you're here," she said, "I'm about to lose my mind. Any news on when I can get out of this matchbox?"

"Sorry," Bailey answered grimly, "I have no idea. I just got out of the briefing with that woman from the CDC and they don't know much. Not even how long the incubation period is…"

Callie waved her hands to stop the other doctor's words. "What the hell is going on, Bailey?" she said. "What woman from the CDC?"

Bailey placed Zola carefully on the ground, moved to the door and slid a thin packet of paper underneath before returning to the window. "She just got here," she answered. "Gave a whole briefing on this outbreak… It looks pretty serious."

Callie picked up the papers and glanced quickly at the first page labeled "H6N7 virus" in plain black type. Below it was a long list of possible symptoms, starting with "nausea, dizziness, sleeplessness, aggression, headache" and ending in "cerebral edema, & death".

"What is this? A list of every symptom ever?" Callie asked, waving the paper in the window. "Is this all they're giving us?"

Miranda nodded and raised Zola up to her hip again and shifted nervously. "They're turning the hospital over to the CDC," she said. "Some kind of emergency containment center. Look at the last page."

Callie's flipped through the packet to a full-page image of the U.S. map marked "Infected Cities". Boston, New York, Miami and Los Angeles were all marked with dark red color on the map. Other large cities were marked with various shades of the color and the map was criss-crossed with yellow arrows. Callie scanned the complicated image for Boise, Idaho and let out a small breath when she found the small green dot marking its location. Arizona was safe.

"She said they've been trying to track the infection," Bailey was saying, "but they've been losing contact with their staff in cities on the east coast. I've been trying to reach Tuck and his dad in Boston ever since I left that meeting…"

"Oh god, Miranda," Callie said, her eyes snapping up from the paper. "I'm sure they're okay…"

Bailey shook her head as if tossing the idea from her mind before continuing, "The Chief told us that we aren't legally obligated to stay. The daycare cleared out pretty quickly as people left and took their kids with them." She looked toward Zola and smiled, clearly more for the baby's benefit than her own.

"Ms. Zola was the only one left so I took her with me," Bailey added, bouncing the girl on her hip playfully. She looked back at Callie, "It's a mess out there and I know Meredith wouldn't want her all alone."

Callie felt her stomach twist into a panicked knot again. "Haven't they heard from the plane?" she asked, trying to control her tone.

"Not yet," Bailey responded, she put a hand to the window. "But the CDC said they have been grounding flights across the country. I'm sure they're all fine."

Callie nodded. "I have to get out of here," she grumbled, pacing back into the room again. Her urgent need to get to Sophia, and her desperate concerns over Arizona's whereabouts were spinning into a small hurricane in her chest.

Sharp footsteps echoed from down the hallway and Callie saw Bailey turn toward the sound. Owen and a tall woman, flanked by group of large men, came into view of Callie's hallway window.

"I will be back," Miranda said, clearly trying to make a speedy exit. "I'm going to see about getting this little one a snack." She turned and moved out of sight before Callie could respond.

The Chief and the woman were speaking in hushed tones that barely carried beyond the glass. Callie tapped on the window to get his attention. "Hunt," she demanded, interrupting them, "when am I getting out of here?"

The tall, blonde woman approached the window warily. _"_I am Dr. Porter, CDC!" she shouted through the glass several decibels higher than was necessary; "Your Chief did the right thing, Dr. Torres! Containing any and all outbreaks is the highest of priorities!"

She turned and resumed her inaudible conversation with one of her burly guards before moving off down the hallway.

"Hunt!" Callie called and pounded on the glass again with her hand, "Hunt! I have to get Sophia."

Owen stopped and turned. "Where is she?" He moved closer to the glass so he could talk at a normal level.

"With Julia. Mark's girlfriend? At his apartment," Callie's muffled answer came through the door. "Look. I'm not sick! Just let me go and pick her up…I will come right back here."

"Torres, she is safer there than here right now," Hunt called back. He raised a hand to the glass in an attempt at a calming gesture. "I'll give Julia a call and fill her in… tell her you're held up."

He tapped the glass, "It will be okay. I promise."

"Don't leave me in here, Hunt!" Callie shouted as his back receded down the hallway. "Goddamn it! I'm not sick! Hunt!"

She banged on the glass once more before collapsing angrily onto the nearby chair.

_**May 23 9:39am - Seattle Grace Hospital – Basement Morgue**_

"I'm not sure I completely understand what you're saying, Dr. Porter," Owen muttered.

They had made their way down from the second-floor quarantine to the basement and were standing together with her security team outside the hospital morgue. Two of the guards had dropped their bags and were removing sets of syringes and small vials.

"It's all in the report," Porter responded absently (?). She ran her finger down the manifest for the morgue and counted each name.

"Yes I read your report," Owen responded, "I'm just not sure what we're doing in the morgue."

Porter sighed in exasperation and handed the manifest to a guard. "Six probable walkers," she informed him before turning to Owen. "As I said before, Dr. Hunt, the virus has a false death stage before its final stage. During this transitional stage, the infected patient displays symptoms which would naturally be recognized as death; undetectable heart rate and breathing, unresponsiveness, blood pressure drop, you name it."

"I'm sure that my doctors know if a patient is dead or not," Owen answered.

Porter didn't respond but the guards quickly moved forward to form a tight line against along the doorway to the morgue. Owen immediately recognized the configuration as military procedure for breaching a potentially hostile room. His eyes darted back to Porter but she made no move to explain as the guards drew their weapons.

"Now, wait a minute," Owen interjected but Porter waved a hand at him dismissively and nodded to the security team.

The first guard shouldered the door open and disappeared into the darkened room, followed immediately by the others. An icy gust of air carrying the distinctive smell of death washed into the hallway behind them.

Only a few seconds of silence passed before Owen recognized the soft pop of a silenced weapon and a heavy thud from inside.

"What the hell are they doing?" Owen demanded of Porter before pushing past her and into the morgue.

In the dim light , Owen recognized the fallen form of one of the patients who had died in the Emergency Room that morning. His body lay crumpled over the steel autopsy table, a single bullet wound in the center of his forehead.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Owen shouted at the security officer who still had his gun trained on the body. "I want a goddamn answer as to why exactly you are shooting at dead bodies in my morgue!"

"Dr. Hunt," Porter's voice echoed heavily against the metal surfaces in the morgue behind him. "If that man was dead, why was he standing in the middle of the room when he was shot?"

Owen looked down at the body. It certainly didn't make sense that it had toppled onto the empty autopsy table on its own.

"Dr. Porter." One of the guards approached her and handed her back the morgue manifest. He pointed to a name on the list. "We're missing one."

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_Aaah! So I promise things are gonna get more zombie-y in the next couple of chapters. Thanks for stickin' with it so far! Remember to let me know what you think! :)_


	4. Chapter 4

_Hi again! Hope I didn't lose any of you. Things are heating up for our poor friends at the airport. As always, let me know what you think. And enjoy!_

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_**May 23 10:08am - Baker City Airport, Oregon **_

"Okay, we're surgeons," Lexie mumbled to Meredith, fiddling with an intricate handle on the underside of the plane. "This shouldn't be this complicated."

She tugged at the lever for possibly the hundredth time but the luggage compartment on the outside of the small aircraft remained tightly sealed.

"Look out," Cristina's voice came from behind the two sisters. They turned to see the petite doctor hauling a large metal tool toward them from near the airport building.

"What is that?" Meredith asked as her friend passed her.

Cristina looked at the weighty item and shrugged. "A metal thingy," she offered unhelpfully. Without warning she raised the tool over her head and bashed it into the handle of the luggage compartment. The hatch popped open and the bags tumbled to the ground. "Also apparently a magic door opening thingy," she added, dropping the tool to the ground with a clank and grabbing her backpack from the pile.

Arizona sat cross-legged inside the plane. The young pilot was hunched over next to her near the already-cooling body of his mentor. A large grey blanket covered the majority of the pilot's prone form but Raleigh's eyes remained trained on the captain's face. He wiped his hands across his eyes intermittently, quickly erasing any evidence of tears.

Arizona turned when Derek appeared in the hatchway of the plane. "Looks like the doorway inside is locked," he said in a hushed tone, not wanting to disturb the grieving boy.

"This should unlock some of the security doors," Raleigh said, pulling in a deep breath to steady himself. He leaned forward over the body and gently unclipped the captain's badge from his shirt. Handing the badge to Derek, he nodded toward the locked door into the airport. "I don't know what kind of clearance that needs but you could try it."

Derek took the thin plastic badge from the copilot. The captain's face smiled up at him from a small square picture on the yellow ID.

Leaving Raleigh and Arizona behind in the plane, Derek jumped down from the hatch and joined the others outside by the door to the airport. Mark was still throwing his shoulder against the door at regular intervals trying to knock it open.

"This might work a little better," Derek offered. He stepped around Mark and waved the badge in front of the security panel. Immediately, a loud beep came from the machine and the distinct sound of the door's deadbolt sliding back could be heard. Derek turned the handle and pushed it open before turning to grin at Mark.

"Obviously I loosened it for you," Mark insisted, rubbing his shoulder.

Meredith stuck her head into the plane again. "The door's open," she told Arizona. "You two can wait here if you want and we'll send someone out when we find them."

"No, we're coming," the blonde doctor answered. She turned back the copilot and placed her hand on his back again.

Without a word Raleigh pulled the blanket over the pilot's face and got to his feet. He grabbed his bag from the cockpit and followed Arizona out of the hatch of the plane.

Once together on the ground, the group shouldered their bags and made their way into the long white hallway beyond the door. It was lit by long fluorescent lights which flickered occasionally and seemed to stretch ominously onward without end. When they finally reached a small set of concrete stairs and emerged through another doorway into the airport terminal, the overhanging feeling of unease only intensified.

The long, carpeted terminal was deathly silent. Not a single other traveler or airport employee could be seen in any direction. The large monitors which scrolled through the times of incoming and outgoing flights were still brightly lit. Huge panes of glass, which separated the terminal from the airfield, didn't show even a hint of movement all the way to the tree line in the distance.

"Where the hell is everyone?" Mark muttered aloud the question that everyone had already been thinking.

Lexie made her way to the large screen showing the latest departures. "They all say 'delayed'," she said, scanning the list from top to bottom.

Everyone jumped when a calm female voice blasted over the loudspeakers of the airport. The voice listed a few rules for the security check and politely reminded them that the vacant airport was a no smoking area.

"It's on an automated system," Raleigh said, gesturing up toward a nearby speaker in the wall. "Just a recording."

"There's no dial tone here either," Meredith added, dropping the phone at a nearby customer service counter back into its cradle. "It's the middle of the day. Why is every flight delayed?"

"Well, standing here like a flock of little lost lambs isn't going to answer anything," Cristina interjected shortly.

Derek nodded. "We need to split up and look for help," he said. "There have to be security guards around at an airport even if it is closed."

He looked to Raleigh for some sort of confirmation but the copilot was staring blankly out a window and across the airstrip with his hands shoved into the pockets of his navy blue uniform slacks.

Arizona pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her jacket. "We can't split up without any way to contact each other," she said, offering up the useless phone as justification.

"What about these?," Meredith said, emerging from below the countertop with a set of black and yellow two-way radios.

Raliegh glanced at her. "Airline employees usually use those to communicate between gates," he said absently. "They're always charged."

"Alright," Derek said, glancing up toward the signs pointing the way toward different parts of the airport. He picked up his bag from where he had dropped it. "We can split into two groups. If anyone finds something send out a message."

_**May 23 10:31am - Baker City Airport, Oregon – Security Station**_

"Hellooo!" Cristina called through the security checkpoint. Her voice echoed back from the far wall of the room. "Anyone want to check my bag?"

As they approached the rows of still-humming x-ray machines and metal detectors, Meredith, Derek and Cristina only found more empty hallways and abandoned machinery. Meredith approached one of the metal detectors and tossed her bag around the outside of the machine, careful not to set it off the alarms. Cristina, on the other hand, followed a few steps behind with her own bag slung boldly over one shoulder.

Meredith jumped as the machine behind her let out a terrible screech which cut through the silence of the empty security checkpoint like a knife.

She turned and shot a stricken look back at Cristina.

"Luckily no cavity searches today," Cristina joked.

"Over here!" Derek's shout from across the room interrupted the two women. He waved them over from a doorway to the side of the security area. "This looks like some kind of TSA office?"

Meredith scooted passed him and peered in through the small glass window in the door. The lights in the adjoining room were off but she the small amount of light from the window glinted against something metallic against the back wall.

Meredith squinted, cupping her hands against the window, and could just make out a rack of large guns lined up in the gloom of the room.

Derek waved the access card that the copilot had given him across the panel next to the door but the small grey box only produced a disapproving buzzing no matter how many times he tried. "No luck," he muttered, shrugging to Meredith.

Cristina nodded to a nearby sign that pointed the way to the baggage claim. "Maybe everyone is just waiting for their bags?"

She took a step toward the escalators but jumped backwards again when her foot sank into the carpet with a soft squish. The light grey rug below her tennis shoe was sodden a dark red. The color spread outward against across the floor in a thick puddle.

"Mer?" Cristina called. "I'm hoping this is someone's cherry slushy."

The group circled around the large stain and squinted at it quizzically. "If it's blood, where's the body?" Derek wondered aloud as he crouched down to examine the liquid. "There's too much here for the person to have just walked off."

Meredith wrapped her arms around herself with a shiver. "Let's just find a security guard," she said.

The three doctors moved carefully around the large puddle before riding one of the escalators down to the baggage claim. The first floor was just as empty of people as the security checkpoint they had just crossed through. The circular conveyor belt laden with suitcases and luggage was still running; rotating a number of unclaimed bags around the room aimlessly.

Cristina moved toward the machine and pressed the emergency stop button, bringing the circling carousel of luggage to a grinding halt.

"Alright, this is getting more than a little bit creepy," she said, kicking at one of the abandoned bags.

Derek unclipped the yellow radio from the strap of his backpack. "Robbins?" he said awkwardly into the tiny object, unsure of how to use it properly. "Are you there?"

"Yup, we're in the food court," her voice crackled from the speaker. "We haven't seen anyone yet."

"There's no one at the security checkpoint or the baggage claim either," Derek answered. "We're going to check the parking garage then we'll meet up with you."

He clipped the radio back at his shoulder and took Meredith's hand. They all headed out through the automatic glass doors at the front of the building and toward the small parking area.

_**May 23 10:42am - Baker City Airport, Oregon – Food Court**_

"Yes, I'm going to need a cheeseburger please, no onions," Mark leaned over the counter of an empty fast food kiosk. The cash register was still lit up and the vats of boiling frying oil in the back were bubbling away, blackened french fries still floating inside.

"Also, I need to tell you," he muttered conspiratorially to the invisible employee, "the service here is absolutely terrible. I think I'm going to have to make a complaint to your manager."

Lexie laughed and threw a packet of ketchup at him from a pile of condiments at the end of the counter. "Get fries for me," she ordered. "I'm starving."

"Wait your turn, Lex," Mark answered with mock-seriousness. He turned back to the counter and rattled off another list of food.

"The others haven't found anything," Arizona said, coming up behind them at the burger booth. "I was really hoping there would be someone here, at least. It's the same at every stall. Everything left on and not a soul in sight."

"The tables too," Lexie added, her light-hearted attitude fading. "It looks like people just left their food when they went…"

"I hate to say it," Arizona replied, "but you don't think this could be some kind of terrorist attack or something? I mean why would they clear out the whole airport like this?"

Mark shrugged, "Either way, I don't think they're going to miss some of their food." He hopped over the counter and grabbed a paper cup and filled it up with a thick chocolate shake from the machine. He slurped a little before handing it to Lexie.

"We can't just take their food," Lexie said, refusing the drink, "They're coming back eventually."

"Alright, alright," Mark answered. He reached into his pocket and dropped a handful of crumpled bills onto the counter near the register. "We'll pay for it. But everyone's hungry. We may as well take some."

He reached into a small refrigerator under the counter and pulled out several colorful juice boxes. "Just grab some stuff that we can throw in our bags and we'll go back to meet Derek," he said, tossing the juices into his duffle. "There's no one here anyway."

"Where's Raleigh?" Arizona injected as Mark and Lexie packed their bags with little packages of snacks. "He was just here."

She called the copilot's name before starting off between the tables in the direction they had just come.

"Back here!" Raleigh's voice rose across the high ceiling of the dining area from the door to the terminal. "I found someone!"

Mark and Lexie shoved a last handful of food into their bags and hopped over the counter before following Arizona across the room to where the copilot was standing in the doorway.

"Look!" he said, pointing down the terminal toward a single figure hunched near a customer service desk. He dropped his bag and hurried forward ahead the rest of the group. Mark, Lexie and Arizona followed a few steps behind.

_**May 23 10:54am - Baker City Airport, Oregon – Parking Garage**_

The airport garage was nearly empty when Meredith, Derek and Cristina crossed through its large concrete entryway. At only two stories tall, this one was considerably smaller than the parking area of the airport in Seattle that the doctors had just left.

They crossed the first floor of the garage slowly, peeking in the windows of the cars as they passed to check for occupants but it proved fruitless. Finally they reached the stairs to the second level and hurried up them.

Cristina was the first to reach the open-air rooftop parking area at the top of the stairs. She scrambled up the last of the stairs and blinked against the bright sunlight. At the far end of the lot, Cristina could make out a jumble of figures crouched near a group of cars.

"Hey!" she shouted toward the figures and started forward across the blacktop of the roof. "Hello?"

She passed between a few rows of cars and raised her hand above her head to try and shade the glaring sun from her eyes. The people in the distance were silhouetted against the sky and as Cristina approached, the heat waves that rose from the ground and distorted her vision fell away to reveal four men and a woman hunched together in a loose circle.

Cristina froze in her tracks. On the ground, surrounded by the people was a body. Or what looked like used to be a body. Cristina could make out the shape of arms and legs and perhaps a torso but the form was so distorted and bloodied that it was hard to tell. The group was hunched over the body and pawing-no, tearing at it-with wild, jerking motions.

"Cristina?" Meredith's shout as she emerged from the stairs wrenched Cristina out of her shock. She stumbled backwards and tripped into the hood of one of the cars behind her. It creaked loudly under her weight.

The people, clearly alerted by Meredith's shout and Cristina's thunderous exit, whirled around to face her. The man closest to Cristina, clad in a blue uniform with the letters 'TSA' across the back, locked eyes with her as he turned.

He was bent close to the ground and his left arm hung, mangled and black from the fingertips to the elbow. His eyes were bloodshot and sunken into his head while his mouth gaped slightly to the side like the jaw had been broken, the bottom half of which was stained with blood.

He opened his mouth and let out a bloodcurdling screech, which was quickly matched by the four equally misshapen people behind him. Cristina jumped backwards and ran full tilt toward the stairs where Meredith and Derek were approaching.

"What is it?" Derek asked when she tumbled into them at the top of the stairs. He looked over her shoulder and his face paled. The group of people at the edge of the roof had abandoned their gruesome meal and were scrambling toward the three doctors at an alarming speed; crawling hurriedly over the hoods of cars in their way.

Without a word, Cristina grabbed Meredith and Derek by their jackets and hauled them back down the stars. Cristina tumbled into the wall at the end of the first floor landing and turned in time to see their pursuers reach the top of the stairs and start down, howling all the way.

Derek and Meredith had already started running back across the ground level of the garage and toward the sunlight at the exit. Cristina tore after them across the small street and back toward the abandoned airport.

The automatic glass doors slid politely aside as the doctors approached and the icy blast of air conditioning struck them like an electric shock. The doors slid closed with a hiss, but their followers were still coming, emerging from the parking garage and ambling across the street toward the thin glass barrier that separated them from their prey.

"What's wrong with them?!" Meredith shrieked as they surged closer, their limbs stretched out in front of them and their eyes trained on the approaching doorway.

Their decaying followers didn't slow at all as they charged toward the automatic doors. Derek darted forward and grabbed the edge of the door, pinning them together just as the mob reached them. The two doors strained in his grip as they stumbled across the automatic open sensor. Cristina hurried forward and grabbed a hold of the doors to try and help keep them closed.

The five people slammed against the glass with a thud but the glass remained intact against their combined weight. They squirmed against the glass, violently trying to push through the invisible obstacle. Their faces were only a centimeter away from Derek and Cristina's, providing a solid look at their gruesomely disfigured features. Their faces were pockmarked and scarred with decaying flesh and their mouths were covered in blood.

"Meredith!" Derek shouted, leaning into the door as the automatic machinery groaned against him. "Meredith, find the door shutoff!"

Meredith gasped as she tore herself out of her trance-like view of the creatures in the doorway. She whirled and stumbled toward the panel on the wall marked with small stop sign. Yanking open the door of the controls, she punched the button to lock the doors. Immediately, a deadbolt slid into place and the grinding of the doors ceased. Derek and Cristina tumbled backwards away from the glass and the three doctors stood gasping inside the airport.

The creatures outside backed away slightly, as if aware that the doors had been locked and their attack foiled. They meandered backwards unsteadily seemingly forgetting that their intended prey was only inches away.

"What's wrong with them?" Crisinta said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Derek shook his head and bent over, placing his hands on his knees to try and steady his panting.

Cristina inched closer to the glass again for a better look. The people milled about just a few feet away.

"They look …almost…" she paused and squinted through the glass, "dead."

"They looked pretty alive to me when they were chasing us," Meredith muttered shakily.

Cristina pointed up toward the face of the nearest creature. "Maybe some kind of flesh eating virus?" she said trying to get a closer look at their rotting features. "They have serious necrosis."

The radio at Derek's shoulder crackled loudly and he quickly snatched it up. "Shep….bring… food," Arizona's voice was barely audible over the static, "found…someone"

"Say again, Robbins," Derek responded into the mouthpiece. "You're breaking up."

Cristina leaned in close to the glass, her medical curiosity overwhelming her fear of the violent people in the street outside. Without warning, one of the creatures whirled around and ran, screeching, head-first into the window.

Cristina tumbled backwards and crawled away in a panic. Derek and Meredith each grabbed one of her arms, hauled her to her feet and backed hurriedly away as the man pulled back for a second charge at the fracturing glass.

The radio crackled incessantly as they ran back up the stopped escalator but they couldn't make out any words. Derek gripped it again and pulled it close to his mouth. "Robbins, if you can hear me, don't go near anyone," he said urgently. "Stay where you are. We're coming to you."

_**May 23 11:02am - Baker City Airport, Oregon – Food Court**_

"H-Hello?" Arizona shook the radio in her hand. "Shepherd, can you hear me?"

"I can't get this thing to work!" she called ahead to Mark, Lexie and Raleigh who had nearly reached the figure at the end of the terminal.

Mark ambled a few steps behind Lexie and Raleigh. He had felt a small twinge of disappointment when the copilot had spotted the first person they had seen all day. The quiet wonderland of empty halls and vacant food courts had been a welcome sort of reprieve from the every-day grind.

It had been a bizarre little holiday that he had gotten to spend with Lexie, filled with the strangely comfortable pressure that had developed since her confession of love. When the figure had appeared ahead of them, Mark realized he hadn't thought of Julia even once since they had taken off from Seattle. Now her presence loomed over him again along with the growing anxiety over their relationship.

"Hey!" Raleigh's shout interrupted Mark's musings. The young pilot had nearly reached the man who was leaning heavily against a customer service desk before he stopped suddenly. "Oh my god," he muttered. "Captain Kelso?"

The captain was pale and gaunt. His eyes were closed and but was bent with his almost his full weight supported on his elbow at the desk, obscuring the majority of his face. His captain's uniform was unbuttoned to the waist and open from when Cristina had tried to resuscitate him.

Raleigh reached forward nervously. "Sir?" he ventured tentatively. "Are you alright?"

Arizona banged the radio against a nearby counter and it crackled loudly before Derek's panicked voice emerged through the static: "…respond. Don't go near anyone, Robbins! There is something wrong with the people here! They're sick. Don't go near them…"

Arizona's gaze shot up toward the rest of the group. "Wait!" she shouted, dropping the radio and running toward them. "Don't go near him!"

The captain's head snapped upwards and he grabbed Raleigh's outstretched arm like a puppeteer had given his strings a violent jerk. His mouth gaped open and he let out an unearthly screech before whirling around and tackling the younger pilot to the floor.

Raleigh yelped as his back hit the carpet. He struggled against the heavier man, trying to untangle himself, as the captain clawed blindly at his arms, leaving deep red gouges. Mark stared, open-mouthed at the struggling pair for a heartbeat before leaping forward between the brawling men and Lexie. He snaked his arm around the captain's neck and leaned back, trying to pull the older man off of the screaming boy.

Arizona reached the fight in time to yank Lexie out of the way as the captain shook his body wildly like a dog shaking off water and threw Mark backwards out of the fray. Freed of Mark's hold, he leaned forward and sank his teeth into Raleigh's throat. The copilot screamed and thrashed violently but the other man wouldn't release him from the grip of his jaws.

"Mark!" Arizona cried. She had smashed through the glass of a fire extinguisher box and was holding the heavy, red cylinder close to the ground. Mark grabbed the weapon from her and swung, connecting with the captain's head with a heavy thud.

The clobbered man tumbled away from Raleigh before landing in a heap across the blood-stained carpet. Only seconds later, he was on his feet again, the lower half of his face dripping with the thick liquid. Throwing his head back, the captain shrieked wildly again and charged toward Mark, who countered by swinging the fire extinguisher like a bat, knocking his attacker to the ground for a second time.

"What the-," Mark muttered as the captain managed to get to his feet for the yet again. Taking advantage of the tall doctor's shock, the wild man surged forward again and grabbed hold of the extinguisher. Both wrestled bodily for control.

Suddenly Derek emerged from the doorway of the security station, his stature dwarfed by the large black gun raised in his arms. He pulled back on the trigger and… nothing.

The gun clicked lamely in his hands.

"The safety!" Arizona shouted at him, "Turn the safety off!"

Derek flipped the gun over, his eyes darting across the length of its matte black finish. He flipped a small switch and raised the gun to his shoulder again.

Silence.

"For the love of god! Shoot him!" Mark grunted. He swung a kick at the captain but couldn't loosen the madman's hold on his makeshift weapon. "Anytime would be good!"

Derek raised the gun again as Arizona crossed to his side in a quick motion. Without a word, she flipped the safety to the off position and turned away to cover her ears as he pulled the trigger.

The gun went off.

The noise was deafening in the confined space. Derek could barely maintain his grip as the automatic weapon recoiled upwards in his hands and sent a bright spray of bullets into the air. Mark tumbled backwards, away from the captain as one of the huge planes of glass behind them shattered.

The rain of tiny shards rang like a massive wind chime. When the sound finally stopped, it was replaced by complete silence. The captain lay across the carpet, bleeding from the back of the head. His limbs splayed out awkwardly like those of a lifeless animal by the side of a highway.

Mark dropped the fire extinguisher with a clank. He bent over with his hands on his knees and gagged. Derek held the gun at his side as far away from his body as he could manage without putting the weapon down as Meredith and Cristina peered around the doorway behind him.

Arizona dropped to her knees near Raleigh's body sprawled across the floor. The front of his shirt was torn and soaked in blood and the carpet around him was nearly swamped with it. She shook her head and looked up at the rest of the group. "He's dead," she said.

Mark stood up and jabbed a finger in the direction of the captain's corpse. "That motherfucker was supposed to be, too."

* * *

_Gahhh! I told you things were getting crazy! Stay tuned ;)_


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